Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

For Record Store Day Black Friday in 2023, Rhino Records is issuing a previously unreleased live album from The Doors, in both CD and LP formats. Live In Bakersfield will be limited to 7,500 vinyl double-LP's, and 12,500 double-CD's. The album was recorded on August 21, 1970 at the 3,000-seat Bakersfield Civic Auditorium in California. The documented concert was one of the last ones performed on the band's 1970 Roadhouse Blues Tour, on which they promoted their album Morrison Hotel . Notably, it took place during the same month in which Jim Morrison went on trial in Miami, FL for allegedly exposing himself on stage. This Bakersfield, CA concert was recorded by road manager Vince Treanor, using a stereo tape recorder with a pair of microphones placed on different sides of the stage. Bootlegs of the concert have circulated, with sound that is usually fairly clear but sometimes flat. It will be interesting to hear how the sound quality has been enhanced for this official re...

The 56th set of exclusive vinyl items offered to members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in July of 2023. For those who are unaware, Third Man Records is the label owned by Jack White, who is the leader of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and the Dead Weather, and is now a solo artist. The Vault service promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (usually one full-length album and one 7” single) to its members every three months. The 56th Vault package featured a 3-LP live album by the late jazz legend Miles Davis, recorded at the Fillmore East in 1970, as well as a 7-inch single containing renditions of three of Davis' works by contemporary Austrian jazz artist Muriel Grossmann. As bonus items, this package contained an embroidered patch and a bumper sticker, the latter of which reads: "Miles Davis changed the course of music five or six times. What have you done...?" The 3-LP set Fearless: March 7, 1970 - Live At The Fillm...

The Distractions were a new wave band from Manchester, England who recorded only one full-length album -- 1980's Nobody's Perfect -- during their original existence. The band folded in 1981 after being dropped by Island Records in favor of U2. But two of its founding members, singer Mike Finney and guitarist Steve Perrin, would occasionally perform and eventually record with different lineups of the Distractions. Surprisingly, the Distractions began to issue new recordings in the 2010's, long after the unjustly overlooked band seemed destined to be forgotten forever. After two EP's were released in 2010 (one of which, Black Velvet , had been recorded in 1995), Finney and Perrin went on to record two full-length Distractions albums: The End Of The Pier (2012) and Kindly Leave The Stage (2017), both of which showed that the former new wavers had mellowed with age, and apparently felt no need to aim for commercial success by that time in their lives. Finney and Perri...

For Record Store Day Black Friday in 2023, Rhino Records is issuing a limited edition LP of INXS rarities, related to the Australian band's 1982 album Shabooh Shoobah , which was their first album released in the United States. The Shabooh Shoobah Rarities LP is pressed in colored vinyl and will be limited to 3,500 copies. Shabooh Shoobah helped INXS achieve a strong breakthrough in the U.S. and elsewhere, as it corrected the shortcomings of the band's two earlier dance-rock albums which were released overseas. Still, the related rarities collected on this Record Store Day LP will mostly only be of interest to diehard fans. All of the eleven tracks were released digitally last year as part of a 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Shabooh Shoobah . Four of the tracks are obscure B-sides which I have previously covered in an earlier blog post and YouTube playlist . These tracks tend to be unlike most INXS recordings. This is especially true of two tracks which appeared as ...